


Snow Babies

by brotherfuckers



Series: Striderclan [60]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Childhood, Family, Family fun, Fluff, Gen, Small Striders, Snow, Snowball Fight, cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brotherfuckers/pseuds/brotherfuckers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mom called the boys up to New York to enjoy a snowfall with the girls. And yes. It's been proven: being a a little shit is genetic and it runs in the LaLonde/Strider household. (Inspired by this.) The twins are about five in this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Babies

She glanced outside while the newscasters droned on in the background. The clear skies did match the weather woman's predictions for a clear weekend but as she caught the scent of pine floating on the crisp air let in when Rose came back in, she knew better. There was going to be a lot of snow on the ground within forty-eight hours.

She picked up her phone and called a familiar number.

“Hello sweetheart. Would you be a dear and get all the boys up to New York tomorrow? And please include Richard since he has the week off.”

“Ya know it’s terrifying how ya do that right?”

“It’s going to snow soon.”

“Not what the weather app says.”

“Roxy is going to need her boys for adventures. Wouldn’t want to disappoint her would you, Derrick?”

“Yo brats, short ones and the tall one,” he called out on the other end of the line, presumably to the rest of the apartment. “Any conflicts with New York tomorrow for- How long, Mama?”

“A week will suffice.”

“For a week.” She could hear the faint answers in the background. “A’ight, sounds like we’ll be there.”

“I’ll have hot cocoa waiting for you.”

* * *

The cold wind was blustering about them as Bro made sure the bundled up twins got from the rental car to the house as he carried their little suitcases. D handled the other two bigger ones. Mom waited for them at the top of the steps with her arms held wide open to catch the boys in hugs, giving them sloppy kisses. She made sure to leave a black smear on each of the four cheeks. The twins giggled and held their arms out as Rose knelt and helped them out of their coats. Dirk was just released from the plush warmth when a bundle of blonde and felt pajamas came tearing out down the stairs for a tackle hug. Roxy squealed as Dirk spun her around, stumbling at the end because of their relative sizes. Even as the ‘big brother’, three years only gave him so much of an advantage. Dave squirmed away from Rose as soon as she had his jacket unzipped and joined his brother in making a Roxy sandwich.

Bro and D managed to move their stuff out of the entrance way just in time to catch Mom bringing a heavy tray full of steaming hot chocolate in their favorite mugs. Bro took the tray from her as D herded everyone to the couch where little Roxy ended up nestled between her twin brothers on one end of the couch and Mom ended up between the older two males. Rose was primly curled up her own chair surrounded by a pile of yarn with what looks like four to five projects around her.

With everyone settled in with their cocoa, Bro and D caught Mom up on the Houston happenings and she told them about her recent breakthroughs (that they just barely followed the explanations of). Dirk, Dave, and Roxy started out giggling and joking with each other, mimicking the elders for a bit, but just after Mom nudged D into collecting the empty mugs, they each nodded off, leaning against each other.

When Rose announced that she was retiring for the night despite her brothers’ presence, the adults seemed to realize the time and decided everyone should sleep for tomorrow’s activities. Bro and D each hefted a twin up while Mom scooped up Roxy. Together they took them to their rooms before heading down the hall to their own.

“Ya sure it’s gonna snow, Mama? The weather guys were pretty adamant about clear weather.”

“Yes. Most of upstate will get several inches. It’s a strange wind coming in that they aren’t accounting for.”

“It did feel like we were going to get blown off the tarmac when we landed. Well, I guess we’ll see a winter wonderland when we wake up, won’t we?”

“There were far too many Ws in that statement,” Bro commented as he leaned against his old bedroom door. “Night, y’all.” He waved as he left the other two.

“Goodnight, Derrick.”

“Like you don’t talk ridiculously,” D called after him.

“Don’t worry, dear, no one pays attention to your alliteration.” Mom patted D on the arm as she passed him.

“What? No. That wasn’t-” His shoulder slumped. Mom got to her room, turned, and laughed at D who was still standing there defeated.

“You can regain your honor tomorrow in a snowball fight. Goodnight, Richard.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

* * *

Sure enough when they woke up the next morning, there was a good thick layer of snow coating everything they could see from their windows. The forest outside was unearthly quiet, frozen in time under a white blanket. Tucked in for a winter’s nap.

The boys pressed their faces against the glass, fogging it up with their breaths. Bro towered over the twins getting his own pane at the top of the window.

D fell into the old routine of going to the kitchen to make breakfast but was pleasantly surprised to find Rose there with a batch of pancake batter already mixed. Between the two of them, they made a feast that was just finished by the time Roxy and Mom stumbled in with nearly matching sets of bed hair and pink robes complete with fluffy slippers. The rest of the boys were called down as well and everyone sat around the table to enjoy the breakfast. Rose even remembered to put out cups of coffee for the older crew.

As soon as everyone was full and awake, they started the bundling process. The boys had what they brought plus extra snow gear that was tucked into their closets. Both Bro and D raised their eyebrows at Mom when they fit exactly but she just smiled back at them. They layered on sweaters, jackets, gloves, long underwear, pants, scarves, hats, earmuffs, and boots until the kids could barely move. Eventually three adults and three kids (Rose elected to stay inside, firmly planted by the fireplace to knit and read ‘good’ romance novels, despite any cajoling or threats her older brothers made) were ready to brave the New York winter.

The fresh snow crunched under their boots as they made their way into the yard, leaving trails behind them. Dave and Dirk rushed to opposite ends of the yard and started pushing the snow together. Dave’s piles went towards making snowballs, nice and compact, while Dirk worked on building a small barricade presumably for defense. The quiet was broken by Roxy’s giggles as she watched Bro and D duck and twist around each other, trying to dump a handful of snow down the back of the other’s neck.

“Bo! Dee!” The two of them looked towards the girls just in time to catch two perfectly formed snowballs in their faces. Puffs of fluffy snow covered their torsos as they stood stunned for a moment before theatrically falling backwards into a bank of snow. This elicited more giggles from Roxy as she waddled over to them, flopping down between them.

Mom took a picture of their snow angels before wandering off to help Dirk make some snowballs.

“I want ice balls.”

“No sweetie, those hurt and don’t burst as well.”

“Oh, yeah.” He was content with that answer and started making a stack of ammunition with her advice.

Then she moved over to help Dave make a fort.

“I want to have the tallest fort!” Dave told her, reaching his hands up into the sky. “Taller than you!”

“Taller than Richard?”

“No. He’s too tall. He’s stupidly tall as Bro says.”

“Yes, yes he is.”

D, Bro, and Roxy got to their feet and started traipsing through the woods with Roxy swinging between them. They lifted her up and over the fallen logs and let her knock all the snow that was delicately perched on small tree branches. They came across one area under a wide tree where snow hadn’t been able to collect underneath it. But it did have a shallow puddle of ice that crackled interestingly when Roxy stepped on it.

So she stopped and had to walk on it a couple times more, the pieces breaking up into smaller bits under her pink boots. She almost slipped at one point, arms flailing out for balance. Then she jumped on it and one of the pieces flipped up onto her shoe. She reached down to pick it up but with the stiffness of her jacket and the slickness of the ice, she ended up tilting just too far and falling forward.

Bro immediately scooped her up but instead of cries, he got giggles as he put her on his shoulders, her hat apparently cushioned her against the hard ground. D carefully picked up a round piece and handed it to her to play with. It melted and dripped on Bro’s head even with her gloves as they wandered back to the house. She babbled to him constantly with Bro talking back to her with apparently satisfactory answers, even though D couldn’t understand a word she said.

When they got back to the yard, he broke off and helped Mom build a couple snowmen with critiques and some help from the twins when they could spare a moment away from their fortifications.

“That one looks like an imp!”

“Wearing a funny hat.”

“Make a doggy!”

“No, a cat.”

“Make the dog chase the cat!”

“Dave, why is the dog chasing the cat?”

“Because maid told him to run.”

“What maid?”

“Oooh, make a cake!”

“What about a bird?”

“Yeah, make a bird!”

“D, you broke the bird’s wing. Why’d you kill the bird?”

“I’ll fix it if you leave me alone, you li-” D caught himself before Mom’s raised eyebrow “-little squirts.”

“Now it looks like a snow bird man. Cool!”

They heard a high pitched shriek and caught the tail end of a plume of snow from a snow bank. Bro leaned over and plucked Roxy from the snow bank, checked her bright wide smile, waited for her ‘ready’ nod, and then launched her again. Mom just sighed and went back to attending her snow chess pieces. Bro continued to toss Roxy into the drift until there was a row of kid sized holes in it and the snow was too compacted to be safe.

“Dee! Dee! Dee!”

“Yes, Roxy?”

“Which ones are yours?”

“These, this one, this one, and that one.”

“Can I? Can I, please?”

“Sure.”

With a different war cry for each tackle, Roxy systematically destroyed each of D’s snow people. Dave and Dirk joined in, taking out their own creations, but everyone knew better than to touch Mom’s works.

Once everything was destroyed Roxy plopped down in the middle of the carnage, surrounded by the chess people still standing with a wide but tired smile.

“Ya done, li’l one?”

“Nuh uh.” Bro kneeled in front of her and suddenly got a handful of snow to the face. “Now I am!” Bro picked her up and flipped her upside down and did a lot of big brother things to her until Mom stepped in and snagged her out of his arms.

“No more terrorizing my helper unless you don’t want any chocolate chip cookies.”

“She started it.”

“Bro! No!” Dave shouted.

“We want cookies!” Dirk pleaded.

“Don’t be mean!” D joined in, getting a look from Bro.

“Fine, fine, the li’lest midget gets off. The other two of y’all...”

“To the fort!” D yelled and led the charge towards Dirk’s preestablished area. Dirk followed him but Dave first headed towards his own before realizing his backup was heading in the other direction. With a scramble that kicked up some loose powder he caught up with this twin under the cover of D’s volley of pre-made snowballs. Bro ducked around to Dave’s abandoned fort and started launching his own snowballs.

The air quickly became a flurry of snow flying back and forth. Some even collided in mid air in fantastic explosions. Others did make it to the other fort and either added to the structure or cleared it enough to make the inhabitants duck. One of them managed to catch D right in the face. His return fire knocked Bro’s hat off. Any attempts for sneak attacks by the twins were warded off by well placed shots that caught them just as they tried to sneak around the snow wall.

They continued to fight for about an hour before Mom came back out with a plate full of cookies. Ignoring the snowy projectiles still filling the air (because neither side would back down or pause) she meandered through the battlefield without getting hit once. Instead she went to Dirk’s fort first and gave them each a large hot cookie, placed directly into their open mouths. She then went over to Bro and gave him a cookie too.

“Thanks, Mama.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetheart. And there’s more in the oven for when you get cold.”

“Thanks, Mom!” the other teams shouted after they finished their cookies. She waved back at them and carelessly dodged the continuation of snowballs in the air as she went back inside. With their mouths filled with hot gooey chocolate and sweet crunchy cookie, they got warm enough to go for another hour.

Then the betrayal happened.

Without verbal communication between the two, Dave and Dirk both took a handful of snow and together ambushed D, stuffing the snow into any gaps of his clothing they could find. With a roar of insult, D spun around to hunt down his fleeing brothers. Bro joined in the run as they made circles around the yard, tramping the rest of the snow down.

They paused only when they heard a loud grinding sound reverberating through the air, knocking snow off of several branches. When they looked around to locate the sound, they found the observatory's telescope roof rotating around to face them. It stopped when the apparatus that had apparently replaced the telescope was pointed directly at them.

“Hello, boys!” Rose called down when the grinding noise stopped. Dave and Dirk stared up at their sister grinning madly and their mother calmly standing next to her with Roxy on her hip. D and Bro glanced around for cover but they were out in the middle of the yard.  

“Run!”

“That won’t save you,” Rose jeered before she pressed the trigger button in her hand that released the mechanism of the contraption.

Without escape, the older brothers turned to the next best thing and each scooped up a twin. The sky was suddenly full of snow again as it is launched from the slingshot’s reservoir. It fell on them in clumps that caught them before they could get away. They could see nothing but white for a few long, cold moments before the mass settled. The total volume came up to the adults’ waists and the kids’ calves. Bro shook his head, knocking the snow onto Dave, while D just brushed it off with Dirk’s help.

“Was that really necessary?” Bro shouted up at the women who were laughing at their predicament of being caught in the newly formed snow pile.

“Absolutely,” Rose grinned.

“Girls rule, boys drool!” Roxy cheered.

“Now come inside and I’ll get you some hot cocoa and cookies,” Mom told them before turning inside herself with the other girls.

“We want marshmallows!” Dirk shouted back.

“Marshmallows!” Dave echoed.

“How are we gonna get back?” Bro grumbled as he tried to shift around in the snow.

“Carefully.” With his long legs, D was able to step over the majority of the height of the snow and started cutting a path to the door. Bro glanced at Dave, glanced at the snow, glanced at the kid he was holding and then promptly tossed Dave in the direction of D’s path. “That’s not being careful, Bro,” D chided without even looking back, but assuming from Dave’s yell.

“He’s made of rubber. And my balls are freezin’ off. Who gives a damn about careful?” To support his claim, Dave giggled and flopped the rest of the way into D’s footsteps. Bro clumsily thrashed his way over, slipping in the snow several times since he didn’t get a head start like Dave got from him. By the time they reach the door, they were thoroughly wet and cold with any extremities like noses and ears a bright red.

Mom met them at the door. “How are your jewels, dear?” she directed at Bro who turned an interesting shade of red. “And what have I told you about cursing around the kids?”

“Sorry, Mama.”

Mom helped them strip out of their snow gear, collecting it in a pile to the side to melt and clean up later. She sent them upstairs in their driest layer to change into their pajamas. They came back down in nearly matching flannel pants and long floppy knitted sweaters, courtesy of Rose.

After filling their faces with freshly baked cookies, they all ended up on the couch again with fresh mugs of hot chocolate, filled to the brim with marshmallows for the boys and topped off with amaretto for the adults. The twins burrowed into their shared blanket while Roxy bounced on Bro’s lap. Rose taught D some of the basic stitches and got him started on a scarf. Mom just sat back and watched her family with a happy smile on her face. The snow would stick around until just in time to let her boys go back to Houston.

She would miss them like usual but at the same time she understood that they had found their niche in that other city. That’s where they were comfortable just as she and her girls were perfectly happy up in New York. She knew each of them would be great at whatever they set their minds to. Richard and Derrick were already proving that. Rose was already very precocious and had been from a very young age. Rose would be published before graduating high school if she kept up her writing. Dave, Dirk, and Roxy were still too young to predict but that wouldn’t stop them from being great.

She was so lost in her musing that Mom didn’t realize Dave and Dirk had moved until the two of them were fully snuggled into either side of her and begging for her to find them a movie to watch.

“Rudy! Rudy! I wanna watch Rudy!”

“It’s Rudolph, brat,” Dirk countered.

“Dirk. Do not call your brother that.”

“But Bro calls us that all the time.”

“Derrick is not supposed to call you that either.”

“Oooh you in trouble,” Dave teased.

“Shut up, midget.”

“Make me!” Dave stuck his tongue out at Bro. “Haha you can’t. Mom will protect me. Won’t you, Mom?” Dave wrapped his arms around her waist and looked up at her with the biggest red eyes he could.

“Of course. He’ll never come after my darling little angel.”

“Hey-“

“But that doesn’t mean you are safe from me.” He didn’t get a chance to react before Mom was tickling his sides. His shrieks drew laughter from everyone, especially Roxy who then turned around to try to tickle Bro who stoically refused to react until she gave up and then he counterattacked to more shrieks. Dirk was torn between helping his brother and enjoying his escape from tickles when Mom suddenly turned in her seat and went after him as well. D and Rose just rolled their eyes at their family and agreed to be happy about their apparent maturity. (D was tempted to tickle Rose as well until he thought about the needles in her hands.)

Eventually the family collapsed into breathless giggles.

“I wanna watch Ru-dol-ph,” Dirk stressed the name out to spite his brother.

“Everyone alright with that choice?”

“Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!” Roxy cheered.

“Okay, let me put it on.” She extracted herself from the pile and slipped the movie on. She ducked into the kitchen for some real eggnog and brought out a tray of cookies for everyone. She started a fire under the large mantle until it was roaring happily and casting out waves of warmth. She then gathered all of her family onto the couch (even Rose) and they settled in for a good Christmas movie.

An hour or so later, the movie clicked off and Mom found herself in the middle of a napping pile of her boys and her girls. Her children. Her babies.

**Author's Note:**

> For more information please check out our work at striderclan.tumblr.com; we have more stories, head canons, art/pictures.


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